Catch Rider (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 28)

by Claire Svendsen

  “Be good,” I called out after them.

  After what had happened to Wizard, I worried about my horses being out there in the dark. It was so easy for a fence to break or someone to come along and cut it. But how much safer where the horses in the barn? All someone had to do was slip inside and take one, leading them out down the dark driveway and onto the road where a trailer was waiting. I wanted to watch them twenty-four hours a day to make sure they were safe but I knew that was impossible.

  Later Cat ordered pizza to celebrate and I wished that I’d asked Jordan to stay but instead we sat around in our pajamas and told Cat all about the show. How Dad and I had come first and second in the mini Grand Prix, how Jess had completely lost it once again and how I’d been lucky enough to find Wizard before it was too late.

  “Next time, maybe I could come too,” Cat said.

  “Maybe,” Dad said.

  Except Dad and I knew that if Cat came then there would be no one here on the farm to keep an eye on the horses. No one to make sure that they didn’t get into trouble. No one to feed them their lunch. We were lucky to have Cat but the day would come when she would start to resent being left behind and then what? There was no room in the budget for a stand in groom. There wasn’t room in the budget for anything.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next day Wizard seemed a bit perkier. I took him out for some hand grazing since we were worried about him rolling and getting dirt in his wounds if we turned him out. He pranced a little bit when I led him out of the barn and into the sunshine but soon settled down once he found a patch of grass that he liked. Despite Jordan’s promises, he still hadn’t shown up and it was almost noon.

  My horses were out in the back corner of the field but came galloping up when they saw Wizard. They all slammed on their brakes at the last minute, sand and dust flying up into the air and making me cough.

  “Thanks guys,” I said waving my arm in front of my face to clear the air as they all jostled for the prime spot in the corner, necks puffed up and looking proud.

  They were all enjoying a nice day off, well the ones that went to the show were anyway. I’d decided that after I spent some time with Wizard, I would tack up Hashtag and see if I could work on his jumping skills again. The time had come where he either needed to pull his weight as a show horse or find a new home and even though it seemed like the worst thing to do, I really wanted to trade him for Harlow.

  The old, gray school horse would never win a jump off but he could still clear the fences like a pro and he deserved to be here with us, with me. I owed it to Esther, wherever she was. And it was like Harlow was a lifeline to the instructor I’d once idolized. The one who used to rap us on the back of our legs with her crop if we got out of line. She never would have allowed things to escalate so badly between me and Jess. She would have made us figure things out.

  Sometimes I imagined that she’d written me letters but that I never got them because I used to live at Fox Run and now I lived here but the truth was that I had lived in my old house for ages after she left and I never once received a letter or an e-mail or anything. Maybe they didn’t have internet where she lived in Sweden. I imagined a snow covered mountain and goats with long beards and bells and maybe a tiny shack of a post office that made deliveries by sled but really I had no idea what it was like.

  Maybe she lived in a steel and glass skyscraper in the middle of some expensive city and had left her horse life behind, never once thinking about us or Sand Hill again. Some people didn’t want to look back because it was too painful and if she’d chosen a different life then I was happy for her but that didn’t mean I missed her any less.

  “You coming in for lunch?” Dad called out from the back door.

  “Yes, I’m coming,” I said. “I just have to put Wizard away.”

  “How is he?” Dad asked.

  “Better, I think.” I nodded.

  And as I led the black horse into the barn, I did think that he seemed a little perkier, even though his real owner hadn’t been out to see him yet.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hashtag was rusty. What with everything that had been going on I’d sort of let his training slide. I figured what good was forcing a horse to jump when he didn’t want to? But I could still hear Jess taunting me. How she said that I was the one that he wouldn’t jump for, implying that if she got on his back then he would jump for her. I wasn’t exactly sure I believed her. She couldn’t even get Blue Morning Mist to jump anything at the show and that was after Duncan had not only schooled the horse but also given her a private lesson.

  I curried Hashtag’s thick coat, handfuls of bay hair coming out and drifting down the aisle.

  “You are a woolly mammoth,” I told him.

  He hadn’t been clipped. He wasn’t showing so it didn’t seem to matter and blankets were expensive, especially when Bluebird kept ruining his every other week.

  “And I’m sorry if you feel neglected,” I said, stroking his neck. “Did you really like Jess? Do you miss her?”

  I thought back to all the times I’d seen Jess ride the horse. How he’d done well for her and how I’d been jealous. Was that why I didn’t want her to have him? Because I knew that they had a bond? Because maybe she could beat me and Bluebird if she was riding him? I didn’t like to think so but at least part of it was true.

  After I’d tacked him up, I rode Hashtag into the ring. We worked for a while on the flat and as I sunk into his easy canter, I remembered how great his jump had been. How much talent and promise he had shown and maybe the fact that he lost all of that didn’t have anything to do with Jess. Mr. Eastford had sold the horse and he’d changed hands several times before my father managed to snap him up. Maybe one of those people had been the one to ruin Hashtag like the guy at the show who’d beaten Wizard. I let him stand and leaned over, hugging his warm neck.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” I whispered. “If you want to go back to Jess then I’ll try and make it happen. If that is really what you want.”

  Hashtag’s ears flicked back and forth as he listened to me but I was sure he couldn’t understand a word I was saying and even if he did, the only thing he’d really want was to go back to his field and eat. And the only reason I was even considering the fact at all was because I wanted Harlow back.

  “Let’s see if we can get you over a few jumps today,” I said as I sat back with a sigh. “Just a few small ones, I promise. Nothing scary.”

  But Hashtag decided he didn’t want to jump anything today. I led him back to the barn feeling defeated, hoping that Jess wasn’t lurking in the weeds somewhere, laughing at my failure.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jordan didn’t come out that afternoon and he didn’t come the next day either. He was becoming as unreliable as my mother, who had suddenly become all domestic again, talking about preparing a giant Easter feast for the four of us.

  “It will be fun,” she said, pulling a bunch of cook books out of boxes and spreading them on the counter.

  “Fun?” I said.

  Sitting around a table in awkward silence wasn’t exactly my idea of fun but a mother that was interested in doing anything that wasn’t staring out the window or sitting up in her room was an improvement. So I nodded and smiled and told her that an Easter feast would be fantastic.

  “Maybe you could invite Jordan?” she said.

  “Maybe,” I replied, thinking how extra awkward that would make the whole ordeal.

  I called and left messages and texted him a bunch of times but I never got a reply. I told myself that maybe his phone was broken but it wasn’t a very likely scenario. It was more probable that he’d had some time to think about what had happened to Wizard, aided by whatever lies his mother was telling him, and had decided that we were in fact to blame after all. Any day now I expected him to show up with a trailer and take Wizard away and I couldn’t really blame him. How would I feel if the same thing had happened to Arion or Bluebird? I would have been devastated and I
would have been looking for someone to blame too.

  I spent a lot of time catching up on my school work, which I’d rather neglected when I was sick. I spent an equal amount of time looking out of my window, trying to catch a glimpse of Harlow but it was like Jess had him under lock and key and she wasn’t going to let him out.

  I even took Bluebird up to the top of the hill, looking down on our farm and Jess’s spread below. Her fields were green whereas ours were brown. Her ring was dragged, the jumps colorful in the sun. She was riding in it now, jumping a chestnut horse. I wondered if it was the mare that had been stabled next to Harlow, the one with the pretty socks that she’d taken to a lesson. She seemed to get on well with her. There were no refusals. No rails down. And I wondered why Jess could jump so well at home and then fail so badly at shows. Then I felt bad for her.

  Maybe she just had the worst case of show nerves ever, sort of like how Mickey used to throw up before the hunter classes that her mom made her do, back before she switched to dressage and fell in love with riding again. Perhaps all Jess needed was to switch to something else. It wasn’t likely that her father would ever let her since he’d primed her from a young age to be a champion show jumper but she’d been failing a lot lately. He probably didn’t like that very much. He was out there now, striding towards the ring and as he approached, Jess had her first rail down. I watched the red pole clatter to the ground and rode Bluebird down the hill again. I didn’t need to watch Jess get into trouble. I didn’t want to feel sorry for her. I just wanted Harlow back.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I was in the barn grooming Wizard a couple of days later when Dad came down to the barn.

  “What is happening with that horse?” he said.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged.

  I wanted to add that I wasn’t a mind reader but Dad didn’t like smart mouths and he especially didn’t like smart mouths before his first cup of coffee. He was holding it now and the cup was full. Best to wait until he was fully caffeinated before I tried to mouth off, although I was sure the urge would have passed by then anyway.

  “Look,” Dad said, sitting on a bale of hay. “I feel bad for the horse and Jordan but he needs to figure out what he wants. First he wanted to sell the horse, now he wants to leave him here. He needs a plan.”

  “Why don’t you call him and tell him that then,” I said, currying Wizard’s black coat harder.

  The horse pinned his ears. His wounds had mostly healed. They’d been superficial anyway. He was ready to go back to work or be sold on or whatever Jordan wanted but none of us knew what that was because it was like he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.

  “Well he’s your … um … friend, isn’t he?” Dad said. “Can’t you ask him?”

  I liked the way Dad avoided using the word boyfriend. It was like it was a toxic substance that if spewed into the air might actually become a reality.

  “I have asked him,” I said.

  “And?” Dad probed.

  “He won’t answer my calls.”

  I tried to say it like it hadn’t hurt my feelings when really it was all I could think about. That and the fact that I needed to wash my saddle pads. After all, I had to keep my priorities straight. Horses before boys. Always.

  “Well that boy needs to get his life together,” Dad said.

  “Great, I’ll tell him,” I said.

  “And I want you and Bluebird in the ring in half an hour. I got an email from Duncan. He said you were all terrible. Team members home trainers are getting a riding schedule.” He picked out a long stalk of hay and started winding it around his finger like I did when I was bored or nervous.

  “We weren’t terrible,” I said. “It was Jess, she was the one who sucked.”

  “Well you all have to stick to the schedule just the same,” Dad said with a shrug. “Something about everyone being on the same page.”

  I just looked at Dad and shook my head. Jess was never going to be on the same page as everyone else. It just wasn’t going to happen. Ever.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The training schedule was printed out, pages and pages of it. Dad taped them up in the barn in our makeshift tack room.

  “I work on all that stuff anyway,” I said, looking at the lesson plans with my arms crossed.

  “Yes but Duncan wants your trainers supervising you,” Dad said. “And I’m your trainer.”

  “I know,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  It wasn’t like Dad was the worst trainer in the world or anything, it was just that sometimes he’d be too busy to teach me or too tired or he’d decide that we should work on something totally weird like double roll backs. I liked taking lessons with him but because he was my father, sometimes he pushed me too hard and sometimes he didn’t push me at all. The truth was, he needed the lesson plan more than I did.

  “Well I can always not be your trainer if you’d prefer,” Dad said. “Maybe you’d rather go over and ride with Jess.”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  But I couldn’t help thinking about Walter Grey, the trainer at the show whose student’s horse I’d catch ridden. He would be an amazing trainer to ride with. I could imagine his fancy barn and ring, just like Jess’s only better. How if he was coaching me I’d be on my way to the Olympics in no time. I couldn’t exactly tell my dad that though and besides, lessons with Walter cost more than we could afford. So I tacked up my pony and went out to the ring where Dad didn’t follow the first lesson plan at all.

  Later I rode Arion and then Socks. Dad said that Missy had called. I wasn’t sure what she’d wanted and he didn’t know either. He said she left a message and he hadn’t called her back. He was just as bad as Jordan was. Couldn’t people even send a text reply? It wasn’t that hard. I was worried that she wanted Socks back but I knew that Dad was worried that it was about Owen. I missed my chubby half-brother and I wanted to see him. I missed everyone over at Fox Run but they weren’t my barn family anymore. I didn’t have one now. I was on my own.

  And as though Mickey had known that I’d been thinking about her, she called me that night. I was laying on my bed, my feet dangling off the end, staring at the ceiling. I needed to take a shower. I smelled of horse and there was dirt under the layer of dirt that coated my skin. The horses were shedding, we hadn’t had rain in weeks and nature was trying to bloom so the world was hairy, dirty and covered in a layer of yellow pollen. At least my world was anyway. Mickey never went home from the barn covered in as much dirt as I did because she was a dressage princess now.

  I thought about not answering her call when her name flashed up on the screen but that would be as annoying as Jordan not answering my calls and besides, if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I’d spend all night wondering what she wanted or stressing that something was wrong. We may have grown apart but we’d also grown up together. We had history. You couldn’t just throw that away.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” she replied. “I thought you weren’t going to answer.”

  “I almost didn’t,” I admitted.

  “Why?”

  Oh I don’t know, because you bought me make-up for Christmas and then told me that I needed to grow up? But I couldn’t bring myself to actually say the words.

  “No reason,” I replied instead. “Just tired. I need a shower.”

  “Me too,” she said. “Hampton’s dirt is now my dirt.”

  And suddenly it was like old times again and we were discussing how dirty our horses were and giggly about all the places that the dirt and hair got that normal people would think was gross and disgusting. Horse slobber in your hair and horse hair in your bra? Totally normal to horse people.

  “So how are things over at Fox Run?” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Oh, you know, the same. Good I guess,” she replied, also sounding like she was trying to be equally casual.

  “I mean, how is Missy?” I said.

  “Well you know I ride with M
iss. Fontain so I don’t really see her that much,” Mickey said.

  “But you must see her around,” I said.

  “Not really.” There was an awkward silence. “There is a new jumper trainer, some young guy and Missy has the hunter students but her jumper students aren’t around much.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  Missy had always been a good trainer and she was great with kids, especially the younger ones. I thought that by now she would have had a waiting list.

  “Well everyone sort of jumped ship over the winter and went to train with some big name trainer who is down for the season,” Mickey said.

  “Who?” I said.

  “I don’t know, Walter something.”

  “Walter Grey?” I said.

  “That’s the guy. I guess he’s one of the best,” she said. “But I wouldn’t really know.”

  “He’s good,” I said. “I just met him.”

  “Well apparently people will do anything to ride with him. One girl was talking about selling her kidney just so she could afford his lesson fees.” She laughed.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I said.

  “Of course she was kidding,” Mickey said, then there was silence for a moment. “At least I think she was. She’s kind of weird. In fact, we’ve got a lot of new people over here. It’s not like the old days.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  And I did but the Mickey I missed was the old one and even though it felt like the old Mickey was on the phone, I knew that wasn’t really who she was anymore.

  “Well I’d better go,” she said.

  “Me too. Bye.”

  I hung up and stared at the ceiling some more, thinking about the old days and how it wasn’t fair that things had to change. Then I fell asleep in my clothes, horse dirt and all.